Fortitude
by Ness Frost
Summary: To put your life on the line to protect your people takes courage. It takes an entirely different type of courage to keep going day to day when your dearest dream has been shattered. When Sigrun is forced out of the military by something she never thought would happen to her, she has a long journey ahead of her to pick up the pieces… and hopefully build something new.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:** I was going to wait until I had a bit more of a buffer before I actually started posting this story. But the way things are going right now, I feel like I have to.

Some of you may recognize this as a short I wrote up for the 100 Prompts challenge. Apparently it didn't want to stay a short. Though I'm aware that FFNet doesn't allow multiple submissions of the same story, expanding upon an existing short is admittedly a sort of gray area. So if this counts as a double-post, I'll excise the short once the plot of the longer story has caught up.

* * *

 **Warnings:** Violence/gore, permanent injury, internalized ableism

* * *

It was a perfectly ordinary morning on a perfectly ordinary day.

Sigrun was leading her team on a hunt up among the fjords. They were pushing their boundaries that summer, one of their main goals to expand the safe zones outward to accommodate their ever-growing village. It was early in the season, the soldiers under her command still fresh and full of enthusiasm, and they moved on to every next location with a lot of good cheer and a spring in every step.

Perhaps they got a little too enthusiastic, a little too confident. Confidence was an asset in the field; carelessness wasn't. Then, she'd thought she was taking every reasonable precaution without being over-cautious, accepting the inevitable risks without needlessly risking lives. Later, she would wonder if the gods had decided to punish her for her arrogance.

(Even later, she'd tell Sonja that even the gods couldn't be responsible for everything, that sometimes unfortunate things happen even when you do everything right, and that there's no sin in confidence. That would be years down the line, though, and only well after she'd made her peace.)

At the time, all she knew was that they were flushing out yet another nest up in the fjords, and that things were going well. A bit _too_ well, if you asked her: the sixth sense that every experienced Hunter developed was tingling, was telling her that something was off, something was _wrong_. Those who lived long enough to make Captain were the ones who'd learned not to ignore it. Sigrun held up a hand, and her chattering subordinates instantly fell silent.

"Stay here. I'm going in."

Thor fell into automatic step beside her without needing to be called, tail held high. Sigrun nodded in approval. Freyja, their oldest, was head of their feline squad, but Thor was a tom in his prime who needed as much field experience as he could get while he was still young. Freyja parked herself with the soldiers, grooming herself unconcernedly, as Sigrun and Thor stepped into the crag where the trolls had been nesting.

The beam from her electric torch fell over rocks still black and glistening with troll slime. It was disgusting, but it wasn't dangerous: not if you were immune and the area had been cleared. Oh, and if you made sure to watch your step. Sigrun set her feet down carefully, testing to make sure her boots wouldn't slip before trusting her weight to any part of the floor, feeling no small amount of envy for Thor's easy grace as he leaped from rock to rock.

The crag went back deeper than it looked, widening out so that she might even call it a proper cave. Sigrun wouldn't want to engage even a single troll in here, not if it was of any size. More than one and it would be a death trap. Better to back out, mark it down, come back with proper supplies and torch the place, just to be sure.

"Thor," she called, keeping her voice low so as not to start up any echoes. "We're leav—"

The only warning she got was the cat puffing up to twice his normal size, ginger fur standing on end and lips pulled back in a snarl. Immediately Sigrun had her dagger in hand, eyebrows drawing down into a snarl of her own as she faced down the thing coming at her.

It was a long troll with a sinuous body, propelling itself up from the depths with amazing speed as it gripped the walls with many arms. A wide open mouth revealed snarling, jagged teeth, and then it was on top of her.

Her first strike missed the brain that she'd been aiming for, knocked away at the last second by a flailing arm and instead leaving an open gash along the side of its face that only enraged it further. Cursing (mentally; she couldn't spare the breath to shout), she let herself drop and stabbed upward instead, making a deep slice in the thing's belly that she hoped would distract it long enough for her to get out from under it.

It didn't. Its mad thrashing only pinned her up against the rocks, teeth glistened close to her face, and she was lashing out with her dagger expecting to see the Valkyries any second when a streak of ginger fur flashed between her and the troll, and the cat's angry clawing proved enough of a distraction for her to slip out from underneath it.

"Thanks Thor!" The two seconds he bought her was all that she needed to get back on her feet, and Sigrun charged forward with a Viking war cry. She needed to get out before more of them woke up, but there was no way she'd be able to outrun the troll that was attacking her, not with the way it moved; she needed to kill this thing, and fast. _Then_ she could run.

Even as its teeth closed in on her she was thrusting her dagger into the roof of its mouth; hot blood spilled down her arms, the troll convulsed once, and then it collapsed in a limp heap of deadweight—right on top of Sigrun.

This was apparently not going to be her day.

Now came the part where she called for help, had a few of her subordinates work together to heft this thing off her, and informed her team they'd back off and leave it, send someone else back to torch the place. Before she could even think about that, however, her mind was still locked in combat mode: Thor was still on alert, still hissing, tail puffed up until it was almost as big around as he was.

"Stay back!" she shouted to the shadows in the entrance of the cave, who looked like they'd been about to come in and rescue her. None too soon, either: the body on top of her twitched (she _hated_ it when they turned out to have a second head) before violently thrashing back to life.

When it had been attacking her earlier, she hadn't gotten a good enough look at the thing to get a guess of where the second head might be hiding. From the way it was moving, though, it had to be somewhere on the lower body—which was still right on top of _her_ lower body. Frantically, Sigrun worked to wiggle out from under it under her own power, pushing against it with her feet in her efforts to get it off.

She'd almost managed to free herself when, instead of dead flesh, her foot plunged into something warm, wet, and full of razor-sharp teeth.

Even as she was fighting to pull free the troll was biting down on her limb; her leg wasn't even halfway out of its mouth when its fangs sank into her skin. Its jaws clamped down on exactly the wrong place, and Sigrun felt her kneecap crack.

Sometimes, even in the most heated of battles, there are moments when time seems to stand still. Even years later, Sigrun would never be able to piece together exactly what had happened in that moment, or in what order. She only had a few glimpses: a spitting ball of ginger fur, latching onto the troll's face. The troll, slackening its grip for a split second, only to bite down again with renewed vigor when she tried to pull free. Wicked claws sinking deep into Thor's body, ginger fur stained red with blood. The dull snap of her shinbone breaking, her own blood spurting onto the troll's face.

Through all of this, Sigrun had maintained the presence of mind to keep hold of her dagger, and to shift her grip on the handle (though she had no memory of actually doing it). Even as the troll savaged her leg, she pushed herself up with her free hand, launched her upper body forward, and buried her weapon hilt-deep in its face. The body gave one last shuddering jerk before collapsing on top of her once more.

The next thing she remembered (she had no memory of the passage of time, even though they could not possibly have gotten to her that fast) was the weight of the troll being lifted from her, and two pairs of hands gripping her upper arms and hauling her out from under it. To the side, she caught a glimpse of Freyja standing guard at the interior of the cavern, right beside poor Thor's unmoving body.

Dimly she became aware of Ragna, her first lieutenant, kneeling by her feet, eyes going wide at the sight of her blood-soaked limb—was all of that really hers? Then, Ragna was turning back toward the entrance of the crag, bellowing "MEDIC! We need a medic in here NOW!"

The last thing Sigrun was aware of was Ragna tying a makeshift tourniquet around her thigh. The cloth was soaked red within seconds.

* * *

The next thing she was aware of was the smell of antiseptic.

Field hospital. This was hardly Sigrun's first time in one, and once you were introduced to that smell you never, ever forgot it. The prick in the crook of her arm was another all-too-familiar sensation, indicating the presence of a needle feeding blood back into her veins. She _had_ lost quite a bit of it, if her fuzzy recollections served. Dimly, she realized that someone was holding each of her hands.

 _That_ was new. Sure, she'd been hurt before, but the Norwegian army didn't make a practice of coddling its soldiers. Even after she'd gotten her first real injury back at fifteen when a troll had opened her up from ribcage to hip, her then-Captain had only briefly stopped by (once she was conscious) to congratulate her on a battle well-fought, and her father had slapped her on the back when she pulled up her shirt to show him and declared it an excellent scar, especially for a first.

Something was seriously wrong.

That thought alone was enough to motivate Sigrun to force open her eyes, and after a few seconds of blinking the vague blurs above her resolved themselves into the faces of her parents. Her father sat with his lips pressed together, the usual cheerful twinkle gone from his eyes; her mother looked at her tenderly but her posture was straight-backed and rigid, with an expression that Sigrun hadn't seen on her since Trond's funeral three years ago.

"Mom? Dad?" If a couple of well-meaning but naïve privates had thought their commanding officer could use some comfort, that would've been one thing—but her parents were generals. They couldn't be spared to drop everything and rush to her side just because she'd been wounded—not unless her injuries were far worse than the usual. Her heart beat faster. "'r you doing here?"

Instead of answering, her father squeezed her hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Like crap." The lingering sensation of _wrongness_ was getting worse by the minute; her Hunter's sixth sense was now _screaming_ at her that something was terribly, horribly off. "Now _what is going on?_ "

Her parents exchanged a glance with each other across her hospital bed, and still didn't answer. Impatiently, a sense of cold dread flooding her gut, Sigrun yanked her hand out of her mother's grip, and grabbed hold of the blankets that covered her up to her chest.

"Sweetie, you might not want to—"

Any further protests her mother might have made died on her lips as Sigrun threw off the covers and saw that, where her leg had been that morning, there was now only a bandaged stump.

* * *

 **A/N:** Please note that this was written by an able-bodied civilian with no medical expertise. Not to mention an American who's never been to Scandinavia. While I've tried to do the research whenever and wherever I can, I don't always know where to look, so if anyone who knows more about such matters than I spots any glaring errors, _please, tell me!_ This is a pretty well-informed fandom, so I'd like as much quality feedback as I can get.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few days, she had three different doctors tell her there was nothing they could have done to save her leg.

The muscles had been shredded down to the bone, the bones themselves broken so badly they were impossible to set. By the time her team had pulled her out of the troll's mouth, what had once been a working limb was already reduced to an unsalvageable chunk of raw meat and bone shards.

What the doctors _couldn't_ answer was why the Valkyries hadn't taken her like they should've.

"You're lucky to be alive," everyone around her said—nurses, doctors, her parents. "You almost didn't even make it to the hospital. Just be glad you're alive."

Sigrun hadn't been afraid to die.

Oh, she hadn't _wanted_ to, hadn't been seeking it out, but neither had she been dreading it as some people did. Though _dying_ was never fun, what came after didn't seem so bad. Before, there'd been a place for her. There'd been people waiting, friends she was never going to see again in this life. Now, though…

The first night, Sigrun did something that she had not done since she was a little girl who couldn't learn to read no matter how hard she tried. Burying her face in her pillow so no one would hear her, she sobbed until her breath came out in choking gasps, her shoulders shook uncontrollably, and her eyes burned because they no longer had any tears left to cry.

* * *

The next time General Eide came in to see her, she immediately knew he was meeting her not as her father, but as her commanding officer.

"We can't keep your team out of the field any longer," he said without preamble as he pulled up a chair. Sigrun nodded, and sat up a bit straighter; she should have seen this coming. At least he was getting right to the point, getting it over with quickly, rather than dancing around it and making it hurt more. "Traditionally, leadership would pass to your first lieutenant, but I would like to hear your say first."

She shook her head. "Ragna's got what it takes. About time she got a promotion." Before, Sigrun had planned to bring up the matter herself at the end of the season. It was still a bitter thing that Ragna's well-earned advancement had to come at her expense.

"Then it's settled." He stood, pushing his chair back. "I'm afraid I can't stay any longer. I have—"

"Duty calls," she said dully. "I know." Sigrun swallowed. "We're— _they're_ also short a cat. If one can be spared."

"I'll see what I can do." In spite of his pressing responsibilities, though, he stood by her side a moment more; his mouth worked as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he only rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Get some rest."

* * *

For some reason, it wasn't until she'd been in there for three days that the pain really hit.

What had been a detached tangle of sensation during the heat of battle and a dull ache when she'd awoken in the infirmary now bloomed without warning into an unbearable throbbing agony that made her feel like her leg was being torn off all over again, one excruciating chunk of flesh at a time. The medic on duty that morning took one look at her, teeth gritted and fists clenched in the sheets, hurried away, and returned with a syringe.

It could not have been more than a few minutes between the medic's departure and his return, and swabbing her elbow, drawing clear liquid out of a small glass bottle, and working the needle into a vein was the work of seconds at most. To Sigrun, though, it seemed like an eternity of mind-numbing anguish. Even the sight of the needle didn't bother her: she'd put up with anything, _anything_ , to make this _stop_.

The medic stayed with her until the drugs knocked her into a state of blissful numbness.

She spent the next few days—or possibly the next few weeks, she wasn't exactly in a position to know or care about the passage of time—in a drugged haze. Her parents' visits were blurs, with no memory of what was said, though she did have a vague impression of her mother sitting by her bedside at night, gently stroking her hair. Once, she thought she even saw Ragna at the door, though that one might have just been her mind playing tricks on her.

They weaned her off the drugs eventually. The pain was still there, but by that point she had gotten used to it, a constant dull ache in the background of everything she did.

* * *

One day, the medics gave her a set of crutches.

This was not the first time Sigrun had used crutches. She'd broken her toes, broken her leg, sprained her ankle, and on one memorable occasion even managed to step on some sort of sharpened metal rod that had gone straight through the bottom of her boot and out the other side. The mechanics of this were not new to her.

What _was_ new was how much her sense of balance had been thrown off.

The first time she tried to stand, she toppled, and only managed to avoid the floor by catching herself on the nurse's shoulder. Without the weight of her missing leg, it seemed, she felt lopsided, too heavy on one side and too light on the other. Still, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself back up onto her feet every time, because faen if she was going to sit around in bed for the rest of her life. By the time they let her go, she had gotten most of her balance back.

"Come home," her mother had said, when Sigrun had made mention of returning to her own place. "You're going to need some time to adjust. Come home."

Sigrun had another home to go to first.

Everyone stood as she entered the Great Hall, even the generals at the head table. A chair had been saved for her, and those around her parted as she made her way to it.

Her discharge was honorable. She had fought bravely, she heard the generals say in their speeches. She had done everything in her power to protect her team, Ragna said in her own speech, later. For this, at least, she was allowed to have one last feast with her former comrades, one last glass of ceremonial mead. The food was tasteless as ash, the mead vinegar-bitter in her mouth. Her mother cried when she handed over her uniform.

As she made her way to her parents' house after, one of them walking on each side of her, shortening their strides, Sigrun could not shake the feeling that she'd just attended her own funeral.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm going to go ahead and post two chapters tonight, because I've got two done. Don't get used to it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes:** Duolingo does not have a "profanities" section that I am aware of. Therefore I'd appreciate it if any native Norwegian speakers would let me know if Google Transgarble messed up.

* * *

 **Warning** for mentions of suicide - no actual suicidal thoughts.

* * *

Sigrun knew what to do in a hospital: keep still, don't agitate your injuries, drink whatever the doctors told you to drink. It was the most boring thing ever, but eventually they let you out and then you could get back to killing stuff like you were _meant_ to do.

She did _not_ know what to do with a full day left alone in her parents' house

There was _nothing_ —nothing to see, nothing to do, nothing to _fight_. Pacing on crutches was even more tedious than doing it the normal way. Nor did she want to go outside, where she would have to face the uneven ground and the villagers' stares. So she sat, on the bed at first, before she eventually got bored, relocated to the kitchen, and sat there instead.

She looked out the window. She saw ordinary people going about their business, exchanging a wave and a smile as they passed each other on the street. People Sigrun had once protected with her life—who neither knew nor cared about a single wounded soldier whose life was now over.

By mid-morning she was bored enough to consider doing the unthinkable. Taking her crutches in hand, she made her way back to her parents' bedroom, turned to face the wall just inside of the door, and stood staring at her mother's towering oak bookshelf.

No. No, she was _not_ that desperate.

…

She _was_ that desperate.

By the time noon had rolled around the once neatly-arranged contents of the bookshelf were haphazardly scattered all over the floor and bed, the Háttatal discarded in favor of a collection of modern poetry and what did her mother _see_ in this stuff? With a sigh of exasperation, she tossed the latest attempt to the floor, where it lay open and facedown, the gold lettering of its cover winking back at her from the dark wood.

Her stomach rumbled.

Sigrun didn't cook. Not in the military, and not on their Silent World missions—there had always been someone else who was supposed to do the job. She wouldn't have known what to do then had the need arisen, much less _now_.

The first time a plate shattered against the floor, it was an accident caused by her inability to hold a dish while also hobbling around on crutches. The one after that was to relieve her anger.

"Why—did—you—let—this— _happen!_ " she screamed as dish after dish shattered against the wall. "I was _yours!_ Why didn't you _take_ me?"

When her parents found her several hours later, still on the floor and surrounded by shards of broken ceramic, her father only sighed and went to get the dustbin while her mother knelt down beside her.

"Are you hurt?" Her mother's voice grew more urgent when she did not answer. "Sigrun, did you cut yourself?"

It was impossible not to burst out laughing. Did she _cut_ herself?

"Come on, let's get you out of here." By the time her mother had helped her limp from the kitchen and back to her bedroom, her face was in her hands and the laughter had turned to sobs.

"Sigrun, we'll get through this," her mother said, sitting across from her and resting her hands on her shoulders. "Your life isn't over—"

"That's easy for _you_ to say!" she snarled back. The military _had_ been her life. What was she supposed to do, now that… that…

"You're alive," her mother repeated, calmly. "You're alive, and you're strong enough to get through this—"

"I wish that I _wasn't!_ "

" _Don't_ say that." Her mother's grip on her shoulders tightened. " _Never_ say that! You being alive is not a bad thing, do you hear me!?"

"This isn't _worth_ it!" Sigrun swatted her mother's hands away. "I _had_ a place! I _had_ somewhere to go! How am I supposed to die with honor—"

"Is that all life was to you, Sigrun?" she demanded. "How you were going to die? Do you really think that the gods—"

" _Knulle_ gudene! I gave them _everything_ and they still _let_ this happen!"

"They _let_ you have another chance! And I am not going to watch you sit here and waste the _rest_ of your life, do you understand me?"

It was far from the last time they would have that argument, and far from the last time it would end unresolved. Still, there was one fear her mother never had, and which it never once occurred to Sigrun to commit. After all, even if she had been denied her warrior's place, to use a blade in such a cowardly manner was a pathway straight to Hel.

* * *

As summer dragged on and the first crisp tinge of fall touched the air, Sigrun left her parents' house for the first time since her discharge—on crutches, her empty pant leg tied off at the knee.

Whispers followed her. It wasn't unusual for soldiers to come back wounded from the front, nor for gossip to carry if the case was severe or unusual enough. Still, it had never felt quite like _this_ before—every other time Sigrun had come back bandaged or limping or with a limb in a brace, the scars she'd earned were ones she'd felt she could be proud of. Then, she'd proudly given a blow-by-blow account of her daring exploits to anyone who asked and more than a few who hadn't.

Now, she felt like an animal on display.

"A real pity… so much promise… could've made general…" The whispers were ceaseless, flitting in and out like midges, and they were everywhere—when she went to buy new clothing that looked _absolutely nothing_ like her old uniform, when she was fitted for a pair of crutches that _didn't_ scrape her skin raw, and even when she only wanted to walk down the street and back for a breath of fresh air. Worse, so many of them seemed to be asking the same question Sigrun had been asking herself ever since she'd first woken up in that hospital bed:

What was she supposed to _do_ now?

Everywhere she went, Sigrun found herself looking at this shop and that, trying and failing to picture herself working any of the trades. There was no future in farming or smithing for her, not when those jobs needed you to stay on your feet for hours on end. She wasn't smart enough to be a skald, not skilled enough to be a woodworker or a tailor, and the thought of spending the rest of her life sitting behind a counter selling someone else's wares made her feel engulfed in a wave of despair that sapped her energy and left her lying listlessly on her bed for days on end.

"Give it time," her father counseled when she asked him whether she'd died and gone to Hel without noticing. "It's only been a few months. I'm sure you'll find _something—_ "

"Nothing like the military," she interrupted forlornly, and he only sighed and agreed, "No. I suppose not."

Nothing like the military…

How many comrades did Sigrun know who'd lost limbs? How many of those went on to lead lives that were worth living? Many of them went on to train in the most boring, soul-sucking jobs—and those were the _lucky_ ones. The unlucky ones might end up begging in the street.

…some, she reminded herself, went on to get married and start families without the threat of a military career hanging over their heads—but Sigrun had never had a sweetheart, and she didn't much want children either. No career, no alternatives, no future…

"…maybe she would have been better off if the trolls _had_ killed her."

"I'm not deaf, you know!" Sigrun yelled, before wheeling around on her crutches and going back the way she'd come before the startled bystanders could respond.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm aware that it's problematic to say a character's life is over because of a disability, but I _also_ think it's in-character for Sigrun to have internalized this mindset. Things will get better, though. _Eventually_.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time fall had turned chilly and the crispness in the air was there to stay, Sigrun had a visitor.

The knock on her door was not unexpected—it had been a bad week, most of it spent lying on her bed staring at nothing, and her parents had been barging in every _hour_ it seemed to ask whether she was _sure_ she didn't want dinner (how could she be hungry after a day full of nothing?) or to see so-and-so (she'd rather gouge her own eyes out than look at yet another one of her friends who was still in uniform).

"Leave me alone!" she yelled, before the person on the other side of the door even had a chance to speak.

"There's someone here to see you," her father called back.

"Tell them to go away." She flopped back down on the bed and turned toward the wall; her parents really could not take a hint.

"Please? He's come a very long way."

"Then he can turn around and go right back again."

"Sigrun," came another voice—a heavily accented _Danish_ voice. " _Please_ open the door."

No. No, it couldn't be. They hadn't seen each other since…

…since they'd all come home from their final mission, two years ago now.

"Let him in," she conceded grudgingly.

For a few seconds, they only stared at each other. He was much as Sigrun remembered him: tall, broad, and even if he _was_ a tiny bit rounder in the midsection she'd bet he was still as strong as an ox. Meanwhile, she could see _his_ eyes running casually over her tied-off pant leg, before drifting over to the crutches that were leaning against her wall and finally back to her as he parked himself in the room's only chair. "How are you?" he asked seriously.

"Great. Perfect. Never better. One more limb and I'd say that life is just dandy."

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "Sigrun, please don't—"

"What, Mikkel? Don't _what?_ I can't even _walk_ , and everyone keeps telling me to pretend my life isn't _ruined!_ "

"Are you planning to lie in that bed and stew in your own misery for the rest of your life?"

"What do you want me to do? I can't exactly just go out and get another job."

"I did." His smile was small, humorless.

"That _is_ your job. I haven't exactly been fired enough times."

"Yes. Well." He shifted his weight. "If there's one thing we Danes are good at, it's learning how to take defeat." A pause. "I don't suppose I ever told you about Kastrup? How some of the survivors—"

"Stop." He stopped. "If this is some sort of conspiracy with my parents to cheer me up, you can forget it." She flopped back down onto the bed, waving a hand. "I don't want to hear about you people and your failures right now."

"Okay. Is there anything I _can_ do to help?"

The question caught her off-guard— _nobody_ had asked her that since her injury, _nobody—_ and though she didn't sit back up again she did at least roll over so she could look him in the face this time. "You're actually asking?" He gave a small nod.

For a moment, she thought. Then, however, she rolled back over to face the wall.

"Sorry, buddy. But short of getting my leg back there's not much you can do to help me out here." She let out a sigh. "Just… stop pretending that everything's going to be okay."

"Would you like me to leave?"

A pregnant silence followed, during which the chatter of the village drifted in through the windows and her parents' quiet conversation drifted in through the crack under the door. After a few minutes, however, when she couldn't even be sure he was even there anymore, Sigrun shook her head, once, squeezing her eyes shut.

They continued to sit there for a few minutes more, neither talking, and Sigrun _liked_ the not-talking for once. The not-talking, the not-fussing, the not-telling-her-to-cheer-up-or-claiming-to-understand-when-they-really- _didn't_ …

"Will you at least come out of your room for a while?"

Sigrun rolled over to face him, eyebrow raised. "Why?"

Mikkel raised her an eyebrow in turn. "Or do you actually _enjoy_ being in here all day?"

"Don't really enjoy being outside either." She kicked at the crutches with her good leg. "If I could just get around without _these—_ "

Suddenly, she paused as an idea came to her. Mikkel immediately looked wary.

"Say, Mikkel."

"Sigrun…"

"You're a pretty strong guy."

"You are _not_ thinking what I think you're thinking."

"Oh c'mon! I'm even one leg lighter now!"

* * *

"Now take a left, on the double!"

"Yes ma'am."

"I said on the double! Pick up the pace!"

"Aye-aye, Captain."

"There. I want to go there."

"But you just said—"

"No buts, private! Now turn your ass around and _march!_ "

Mikkel let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, ma'am."

"You're not marching fast enough!"

"Well," he grunted—they were going up a hill—"would you" *grunt* "take offense" *grunt* "if I said" *grunt* "that you are _heavy?_ "

"Psh! And here I was thinking those muscles of yours were actually _good_ for something!" Placing her hands on his shoulders, she hoisted herself up a bit further so she could see all the way over that thick head of hair. She'd almost forgotten what the outside air _felt_ like, the cold crispness of it, from the time when life was a jaunt instead of a slog…

People still stared. At least this time, though, Sigrun could be satisfied that she had given them something worthy of staring at.

* * *

"Mucking out the stables. Polishing the admiral's boots. Scrubbing toilets." Mikkel shook his head. "I've had some demeaning jobs over the years, but never has my commanding officer ordered me to offer my services as a _pony ride_."

"Not your commanding officer anymore," Sigrun reminded him as she slid from his back; he caught her under the arm without missing a beat. "Besides, you know you enjoyed that."

"I know _you_ enjoyed it." He was supporting her as he walked her back to her room; her parents were nowhere to be found. " _I_ was thoroughly humiliated."

"Maybe you'll remember that next time you think about pulling a mutiny, mutinist." They'd reached her room now, and Sigrun slipped out of his grip, instead using the furniture to lean on until she reached her bed and collapsed atop the covers—but it was a good collapse, the contented exhaustion of a day well-spent.

"Well, I'm glad that _one_ of us had a good time." He'd brought only a good-sized backpack to carry his luggage; he was reaching into it now, and Sigrun sat up curiously to watch him. "What do you say we _both_ enjoy this one?" He pulled out his hand; in it was a small jug of opaque brown glass.

"You did _not!_ " She snatched the offered bottle from him, uncorked it, and took a swig. It burned all the way down to her stomach.

"I saw absolutely no reason why not." Sigrun leaned over the side of the bed to hand him the bottle; he had a good swallow of his own before passing it back to her.

"Aw, you just wanted to see what kind of drunk I'd be, didn't you?" One more gulp of burning liquor, one more change of hands.

"I will admit to some degree of curiosity on that count." Swig, pass. "We never did spend much time together outside of missions."

"Ah, well." Whatever was in there, it was strong stuff; already her vision was beginning to blur at the edges. "Ya win some, ya lose some." She upended the bottle into her mouth, took a few gulps, tipped it upright and passed it back, wiping her chin with the back of her free hand. "Guess that I lost."

A few more passes of the bottle, and Sigrun had her arm wrapped around Mikkel's shoulders and was belting out bawdy war ballads at the top of her lungs.

"Good. Very good." In contrast to his former captain, Mikkel had gotten progressively mellower the more alcohol he consumed. He was now smiling serenely as he offered her the bottle with an unsteady hand, as if her off-key singing had been a fine concerto. "Maybe you should take up singing."

A few more rounds in, the empty bottle had rolled under the bed, Mikkel had lost the coordination to sit and was instead lying on his back on the floor with his hands folded over his stomach, admiring the delicate workmanship of the beams that made up the roof. Sigrun, meanwhile, had flopped facedown on the bed with her arm hanging over the side and her eyelids drooping.

"Jus' wanted to do shumthin with my life," she mumbled, moving her hand around over the floor as if she expected the bottle would jump into it if only she kept looking. "'M no brainiac… can't cook… nuthin'. Wuzzat too much to ask?"

There was no answer—not from the snoring Mikkel, and not from the silent gods.


	5. Chapter 5

Mikkel was only able to stay for a few days—he had obligations elsewhere, he said, including a new job that was due to start in a month.

She snorted at that. "Maybe I'll start a betting pool on how long you'll last. A month? A week? Personally I'm going for two days."

Mikkel did not rise to her bait, only let out a breath with a slight roll of his eyes. "Speaking of which..." He reached once more into his pack, drawing out a packet bound lightly with cord, and handed it over.

" _Please_ read these," he said as Sigrun took it with a raised eyebrow. "We were afraid that if we used the postal system you'd throw them away unopened."

Well, she didn't throw them away. Still, Sigrun waited to open them until he'd been gone for several days and the boredom had started to gnaw away at her once more.

The gift he'd left her was a packet of letters, addressed with familiar names: Hotakainen. Västerström. Árnason.

They were all from her old team.

Tuuri's letter was long and as chatty as Tuuri herself, rambling on about everything from her day-to-day life to her new job to her brother's latest breakdown. It was all fluff: empty filler, talking for the sake of talking. Still, this was the first time she'd ever written to Sigrun since the last time they'd parted: because she understood Sigrun's aversion to reading or because she just couldn't be bothered was unknown. Sigrun skimmed it, finding nothing of substance, before she got bored and set it aside.

Reynir's envelope, though thick and heavy, turned out not to contain a long letter at all. Instead, the bulk of the contents consisted of a thin wooden disk with an elaborate rune carefully carved into each side.

 _For healing_ , the short letter explained, _and to help with pain_. Hopefully Reynir was making more progress with his mage training than he was with his Swedish.

Setting the letter aside, she took the wooden disk in hand and ran her fingers over the carvings. There was already a hole drilled through it; she could easily thread it onto a piece of twine and hang the thing above her bed, or even wear it around her neck. A thoughtful gift, and one made by a talented mage; if Sigrun chose to use it, she knew that it _would_ work. Still, an unexpected bitterness welled up in her throat at the feel of the rough wood beneath the skin of her palms.

 _Reynir_ _was blessed, blessed by the gods they both shared. Sigrun had devoted her life, yet they had abandoned her and given their blessing to the sheltered farm kid who didn't even know how to pray…_

The charm flew across the room to strike the wall, where it bounced and clattered to the floor. Though Sigrun regretted the action almost as soon as it left her fingers, it was now out of her reach, and she did not have the energy to move from her bed and retrieve Reynir's gift to her from where she'd thrown it like a piece of trash.

* * *

It wasn't until two days later that she finally got around to opening the third and final letter.

Though it was addressed to her from both Emil and Lalli, she had no doubt that Emil had been the one doing all of the actual writing. It wasn't rambly like Tuuri's and Emil didn't try to console her like everyone she'd been seeing face to face; it was short and to the point, and Sigrun's eyebrows climbed higher up her forehead as she reached the end of the single sheet of paper.

At dinner, she was preoccupied, going over the contents of it again and again as she mechanically chewed her stew. Even though it was the first time for several days that her parents hadn't had to fight to drag her out of the room, they still exchanged worried looks across the table as Sigrun quietly finished her meal and returned to her room without a word.

When her mother cracked her bedroom door open after knocking several times and receiving no answer, it was to find Sigrun sitting on her bed with Emil's letter in hand. When even opening the door didn't get a response, Solveig Eide raised a fist to her mouth and softly cleared her throat.

"Either that paper is _incredibly_ engaging," she said when Sigrun finally noticed her presence and looked up, frowning, "or someone spirited away my daughter while I wasn't looking and replaced her with an imposter."

Sigrun's frown deepened as she looked back at the letter, still distracted. "It's from Emil."

"That young man you trained in the Silent World?" Sigrun nodded. Taking a few steps into the room, Solveig gestured a question toward the bed; Sigrun swept her hand out in invitation, and her mother sat down beside her. "So what does he say?"

"He offered to let me stay with him and his husband over in Sweden." She handed the letter over; wordlessly, her mother took it and read through it as well.

Of course, visiting Sweden wasn't even the half of it, but Sigrun had not yet found the words to tell her mother what _else_ Emil had offered. Technology-wise, Sweden's advancement was second only to Iceland's; they had medicine there that Norway could only dream of. While in her home country she might hope for a carved piece of wood at most, there she could be fitted with a proper prosthesis… it would be the next-best thing to having her own limb back…

She was not a citizen of Sweden, and it would cost. Nevertheless, Emil had means of his own now, not to mention a few strings to pull. He had offered to make up the difference out of his own pocket.

 _Consider it a thank you_ , Emil's last line read, _for saving my life._

"So which occasion was he referring to?" her mother asked, a faint hint of amusement in her voice, as she handed the letter back.

"Exactly." Rather than tossing it to the floor as she had with all of her other reading material, Sigrun took the time to fold it and tuck it into her pocket.

For a few minutes, they sat in silence. Then, her mother let out a breath.

"I think you should go."

"Because I'm useless here?" Sigrun could not keep the bitterness from her voice.

"Because you're _miserable_ here." Solveig reached up to wrap an arm around her daughter's shoulders, and this time Sigrun let her. "Sigrun. I know that this isn't what you wanted—it's not what we wanted _for_ you. Ever since the day you enlisted I've been praying this wouldn't happen to you." She let out a sigh, and squeezed her shoulders a little bit tighter. "But it has, and there's no undoing it. I'd at least like to see you try to make something of it rather than wasting away in your room."

There _was_ a part of her that wanted to do just that—there was no _point_ to her life anymore, it seemed, and the thought of the men she'd once led into battle seeing her reduced to _this_ was enough to make her stomach clench. Still, there was another, larger part of her that wanted something else—the warrior, the same Viking spirit that had refused to be beaten by a sjødraug and wasn't going to lie down now either.

"I guess," she said slowly, "there's no reason not to."

* * *

 **A/N:** Roughly half of writing this chapter consisted of "EEEEEEEE I know Sigrun's parents' names now!"


	6. Chapter 6

"AUNT SIGRUN!"

The cries greeted her the moment she stepped into the station, rapidly followed by two sets of pounding feet as the owners of the voices barreled into her one after the other.

"Hey, brats." She shifted her balance carefully; good gods, they had nearly knocked her down! "Where's your dad?"

"Asleep," Lucas informed her seriously. "Asleep," Leon echoed.

The twins were Rash orphans, former residents of a small village that had fallen victim to troll attacks. By some miracle they'd managed to survive and avoid falling ill by the time the Swedish military had mobilized; Lalli had extracted them from the ruins before Emil and his unit had burned what remained.

Most people who chose to adopt wanted children with no health issues—and to most people, that included children who weren't immune. Thankfully, Emil and Lalli had been there to step forward.

Right on cue, a head of sparkly golden hair shot up from behind the back of a nearby chair, Emil's face panicked as he realized what time it was. Immediately he saw Sigrun and scrambled to meet her.

"Where did your leg go?" Lucas asked, right at the moment Emil reached them. Emil immediately looked mortified and started to make frantic shushing noises.

"Troll. Tore it right off." Without the whispering or tiptoeing around, just a curious kid asking honest questions, she suddenly felt able to get back into the old swing of things, recounting her thrilling exploits for a captivated audience. "Whole thing shredded, blood everywhere."

"What happened?" Leon's eyes were wide.

"Well, it got my leg… but I got its head. Both of them."

"Woah, cool!" the twins said in unison; meanwhile Emil's face had acquired a green tinge. "I think it's time for us to get going." Even as Emil was reaching up to ruffle his hair, though, a small head peeked around from behind his back.

Okay, she hadn't seen _that_ one before.

Sigrun raised an eyebrow. " _Another_ one, Emil?"

"Yeah. We were going to tell you, but it was right before… um…" His hair was now thoroughly mussed with the force of his ruffling. "Sigrun, this is Sonja. Sonja, say hello to Sigrun."

Instead of answering, the girl ducked back behind Emil's back.

"She's… ah… still a little shy."

"Yeah, whatever. So what's the plan?"

As it turned out, it was too late to go anywhere but straight to Emil and Lalli's place. Emil carried her luggage, pointing her to the lift that would take her down to street level while the twins ran to take the stairs. Sonja, meanwhile, stuck to Emil like a burr, ducking behind his back whenever she thought that Sigrun might notice her.

"You stop that right now!" Emil yelled when they exited the station to find the twins making a game of sliding down the narrow rails of the stairs outside. Dropping the bags, he ran off to stop them, leaving Sigrun alone with her luggage and the latest kid he and Lalli had managed to collect.

Sonja looked at Sigrun. Sigrun looked at Sonja. Sonja flushed, put her hands behind her back, and looked down at the ground.

Okay, this kid was _weird_.

"Look kid, I don't bite." The child only eyed her warily before dropping her eyes back to the ground. "Punch and shoot and stab, maybe, but unless you're a troll—"

Emil chose that moment to return, panting, one twin's hand held in each of his own. " _Now_ we can go."

Emil hired a horse-drawn carriage to take them out of the station. While he spent the ride trying to control his unruly children, Sigrun made a point of watching _him_.

When they'd first met, she'd been determined to make Emil into a proper warrior and she'd done it—by the end of their last mission if not the end of their first. If the medals he wore on his dress uniform were any indication, she'd done her job well. Yet, her former protégé had also adapted so well to a life of peace: marriage, children. Sigrun wanted none of those things. She'd been born to fight, so once fighting was taken away, what else was left for her? Was she supposed to sit here and watch the man she'd personally trained have it all, while she was left with nothing?

She turned to look out the window of the carriage. The city rolled by on flat even streets, so different from the rustic village that she called home. She missed the fjords already—was _this_ why the Swedes and Danes acknowledged no gods, because they'd grown cynical and soulless to match the soulless landscapes in which they lived? Still, she was moving forward again, in the company of a friend and with the hope of at least walking again, and that was more than she'd had a week ago.

* * *

"Uuuuummm…"

"Let me guess." Leaning on her crutches, Sigrun looked up the narrow staircase that led to Emil's apartment—his _third floor_ apartment. "You didn't think this through."

"Okay, no panic, we'll figure something out." Emil's hand was pressed against his head, his fingers digging into his hair. "What if I—"

"Here." Emil fumbled the crutches she'd shoved into his hands and nearly dropped them on the landing. Gritting her teeth, Sigrun gripped one railing with each hand and hoisted herself up onto the first step—the wood creaked and complained against her weight, but held together. Now that she was sure that the railings would support her, she began climbing the stairs in earnest, using her arms to pull herself up one step at a time.

A few seconds of stunned silence passed before she heard Emil's voice behind her—"Go unlock the door"—and then Lucas shot past her, nearly knocking her foot right out from under her in his haste. He was at the top of the stairs and had the door open before Sigrun had even made it to the second floor landing.

By the time she made it to the top, both twins had already dashed in and were causing their usual ruckus. Taking her attention off of climbing long enough to look into the apartment, she was greeted by the sight of a silver-haired man in the doorway, looking out at her with gleaming cat eyes.

"Nice to see you too, Lalli." Lalli only stared at her for a few seconds more before giving a small nod and disappearing back inside. Sigrun accepted her crutches back from Emil.

They shared a light dinner, most of which was taken up by Sigrun regaling Lucas and Leon with stories of the battles she'd fought since the last time she'd seen them. Once she was done with that, they started asking her to retell their favorite stories of Emil and Lalli's exploits in the Silent World—which she was all too happy to do. While Emil stammered awkwardly and the twins clamored for more, Sonja picked at her food, her eyes fixed on the floor or the wood of the table. Finally Lalli pushed his chair back with a sigh and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. At his touch she practically sprang out of her chair, and Lalli picked up her plate before following her from the room.

"Thought you and Lalli agreed to stop at two," Sigrun noted later that evening, after the children had been put to bed and Lalli had left for work; she and Emil were sitting across from each other in the living room, enjoying the last hours of peace and quiet before they retired themselves.

"Well, that was what Lalli wanted, after the twins. _He_ was the one who insisted on Sonja, though." A slight frown creased his eyebrows, and he looked away. "To be honest, I don't think I could have said no in any case."

They both went to their own beds soon after, Sigrun's in the guest room where she tossed and turned in the dark. They would be visiting the hospital first thing in the morning—and she would find out how much of her life she could put back together.

* * *

 **A/N:** Why no, of course I didn't repeatedly practice hopping up and down the stairs on one foot to get a feel for what it was like, why would you even suggest such a thing? *shifty eyes*

Also, you might not realize it yet, but some of you have met Sonja's prototype before...


	7. Chapter 7

"So how long until it'll be ready? Tonight? Tomorrow?"

The hassled-looking receptionist smiled thinly as she checked Sigrun out. "I've set you an appointment a week from today. We should be ready to move on to the next step then."

Sigrun could not help but feel disgruntled as she limped her way out of the hospital. Swedish tech was supposed to be _good_. How could they possibly take that long for something as simple as a fake leg?

"It's good _because_ they take the time to make sure it's made right," Emil reasoned when she voiced that complaint on the ride back to his apartment. "It might take a few more visits, but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait."

A _few_ more visits? She had barely survived _one!_ Sure, the hospital was clean and shiny and had an actual _ramp_ and _elevator_ in place so she didn't have to worry about hauling herself up any more stairs, but the sterility, the people poking and prodding her and asking weird questions, and the cheerful receptionists who smiled at her and asked "So, vet?", all made her feel ill at ease in ways that she could not explain.

She'd barely been here a day, and Sigrun was already fighting the urge to claw her way out: out of the hospital, out of Sweden, out of her own body if she had to.

When she'd made the trip to Mora, she'd been hoping for a fresh start. Instead, she was back to sitting around like a lump all over again.

The next trip to the hospital only made things worse.

She'd been bored out of her mind for days, babysitting the kids, the only thing keeping her sane the knowledge that she only had to wait a week before things finally got _moving—_ only to come back and find out that the fitting they'd promised her was not for the replacement leg itself, but only for the socket by which it would attach.

"The doctors should have informed you of this the last time you were here," the technician said with a frown when she complained. "Didn't they give you an overview?"

"…maybe?" The doctors last time _had_ said a lot of words, but all Sigrun had heard at that point was something along the lines of "blah blah blah fit blah blah come back in a week blah."

"Well, let's go over it again, just to be sure we have an understanding."

By the time she left the hospital again, her head was pounding. The doctors had used a lot _more_ words she didn't know, and her eyes had glazed over even sooner this time, but what they _did_ manage to convey was that she had another appointment in a little over a week, and that by _that_ time they'd have her leg ready for real.

"I hate everything," Sigrun mumbled into the cushions of the sofa where she was lying facedown, one hand trailing onto the floor.

"You don't hate us," Leon pointed out helpfully above her—he'd also climbed onto the sofa and parked himself in the small of her back while his twin was busily digging through her suitcase, and Sigrun had not yet worked up the energy to put either of them in line.

"You two are brats," Sigrun said, just to be contrary.

"You don't hate Pappa and Itä," Lucas chimed in.

"That's just what I _want_ them to think."

"Do you hate… _trolls?_ " Now they were making a game of it.

"Always have."

"Do you hate… _the Silent World?_ "

"Nearly killed me."

"Do you hate… _water?_ "

"Do you hate… _books?_ "

The more rounds they did, the more ridiculous it got.

"Blue!"

"Paper!"

"The ceiling!"

"You!"

"I'll _show_ you what I hate!" With a sudden burst of energy, Sigrun flipped herself off the sofa, pulling Leon with her. "I hate it—" she grabbed his wrist as he frantically tried to escape, "—when people do—" she used one arm to pull the squirming child back, "— _this!_ " She used her free arm to roughly rub his head while he kicked and screamed in protest, laughing all the while.

"Hey Aunt Sigrun? What's this?"

Sigrun looked up. Lucas was holding up Reynir's charm. She didn't remember packing the thing; her mother must have slipped it into her luggage when she wasn't looking.

"It's…"

It was _what_ , though? Magic? She was in _Sweden_ ; it wasn't _her_ job to explain to heathen kids how magic worked. A gift? She could just picture Reynir, all but wagging his tail, holding it out with a grin like he thought it would fix everything.

"…decoration. It's decoration."

"Yay!" In the next blink of an eye the twins had run off with it, and Sigrun could not chase after them.

* * *

When the charm reappeared on her bedside table that night, she assumed that Emil or Lalli had discovered the theft and taken it back. Sigrun could have told them not to bother; the twins could have kept it for all she cared.

…okay, so maybe she did care, a little. Still, the pang she'd felt at seeing two ignorant kids treat a magical charm like a toy was nothing to the emotion that flooded her every time she picked it up and saw Reynir's eager, innocent earnestness looking back at her.

* * *

"Maybe we should do something while you're waiting?" Emil suggested. "Better than sitting around the house all day."

Sigrun raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have work?"

"I _do_ get weekends off, you know. We could get a carriage—"

"Don't feel like it." Much as she would have liked to get out for a bit, even with a horse-drawn carriage at their beck and call, they _would_ end up getting out and walking around once in a while, and the thought of trying to keep up with two hyper kids, plus the scout who could run circles around her even before she'd lost her leg, was almost as bad as the constant whispers in Dalsnes.

Emil had his mouth open and looked as if he were about to protest, but then thought better of it and shook his head. "Okay. It was just an idea."

* * *

At least she wasn't _entirely_ useless.

No one could sharpen a blade like Sigrun could, and Lalli was getting tired of constantly sharpening and re-sharpening the kitchen knives after Emil let them get dull. She'd overheard Emil grumbling about Lalli getting on his back over something he was better at anyway, and had just _happened_ to mention that if you wanted someone to put a good edge on a blade, she'd bet that she had them _all_ beat. Barely an hour had passed before Lalli was giving her a whetstone and a meaningful look.

So here she was in the kitchen while Lalli was sleeping and Emil taking the boys out to (hopefully) burn off some energy, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows, sharpening dull kitchen knife after dull kitchen knife. The simple chore was soothing and familiar, something she _knew_ she was still good at, a thin tie back to the life she'd once known. As a matter of fact, she was so lulled by the familiar rhythm that she didn't feel the eyes on her until after she'd finished.

"What?" she asked, not really expecting an answer, as she slipped the last of the knives into its block while Sonja continued to stare. "Never seen anyone sharpen knives before?"

"Where did you get those?"

Sigrun couldn't have said which surprised her more: actually hearing Sonja _talk_ , or the fact that she was speaking Norwegian. She racked her brain, but now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember Emil ever saying where Sonja had been adopted _from_.

"Kid," she said, leaning her elbow on the table, "you're going to have to be a little more specific."

At first, she thought that Sonja was going to turn around and bolt. After a moment, though, she shuffled forward, reached up, and lightly ran a finger over one of the jagged scars on Sigrun's forearm.

"Oh, this?" Feeling distinctly pleased, she pushed her sleeve up further to reveal the full extent of the bite marks. "That was a little troll, but it snuck up on us. Followed us under the snow, waited for the right moment, until…" She used her right hand to imitate a biting mouth. "Latched right on."

Sonja continued to examine her arm for a few minutes, before looking a question at her. It was easy enough for Sigrun to read what it meant.

"Well if we're going to do this, let's do it right." In one smooth motion, she peeled off her shirt, and was quite pleased to hear Sonja's gasp at the number of scars that adorned her body.

"Troll attack," she started, pointing to the one on her side. "Threw me right up against a rock, nearly spilled my guts out too."

 _Now_ they were communicating. Sonja still barely talked, but she pointed at the marks one by one while Sigrun told their stories.

"Beast."

"Giant."

"Ambush."

"Stupid accident."

By the time they had finished, Sigrun had removed and replaced not only her shirt but her sock as well, and pushed her remaining pant leg up past her knee.

"…and I _had_ one here," she finished, indicating her still-empty pant leg, "from a rogue Beast, but I can't _show_ you that one because the stupid leg's gone." She leaned back in her chair, propping her foot up on the chair opposite. "Any questions?"

At that moment, though, Emil and the twins came back in the door, and Sonja gave a quick shake of her head before going to greet them.

Okay, so she liked a good story, just like every kid. Still…

"Any reason that girl of yours is so interested in scars?" she asked Emil later that night, once they were alone.

There was a pause, during which she could see Emil thinking, his brows drawing down low over his eyes. "She has a few of her own," he said at last.

More seconds passed. "Not from hunting trolls."

"Not from hunting trolls."

Some horrors, it seemed, had not been eradicated even by the Rash… and sometimes, the only comfort was that there were people like Emil still in the world.

* * *

 **A/N:** I feel like most of this chapter is pure filler. Bah.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes:** I will be incredibly shocked if there's anyone in my audience who _didn't_ see this coming.

* * *

"Does it feel okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine." For Thor's sake, they'd already adjusted and re-adjusted the thing, before making her put it on and take it off several _more_ times just to make sure she could do it right.

"Good. Now, for the next step, we're going to have you try a bit of walking—"

"Got it!" Sigrun was so glad to _finally_ have this done with that she all but sprang off the edge of the table… only for her new leg to give out on her and send her sprawling facedown on the floor.

"This thing is broken," she complained, after establishing that at least no _other_ part of her body was.

"What I was _going_ to say," the doctor said exasperatedly, after they'd checked her over to be sure she hadn't hurt herself, "is that you're going to have to start out slowly to get yourself used to it. You're likely going to have to learn how to walk all over again."

 _Seriously?_ Sigrun gave the woman an incredulous look. "I waited two weeks just to _get_ this thing!"

"And it will take six months or more to learn how to _use_ it." She crossed her arms. "This is an inanimate object, not a flesh-and-blood limb. If you want it to do what you want, you're going to have to _practice_."

When Sigrun had been learning how to read, she'd made up her mind it was the worst thing ever. Re-learning how to walk quickly proved her wrong.

"The bars are there for you to support yourself," the therapist reminded her again and again.

"You think I'm going to have _railings_ with me when I'm out on the street?"

"You're not _going_ to be able to walk normally on the street if you haven't mastered it _here_."

Sigrun had never thought she had it in her to hate anybody. Now, she wasn't so sure.

Once, Emil made the mistake of asking her how things were going.

"Even _babies_ know how to do this and it's worse than basic!"

Lalli had never talked to her much, but that night, he cornered her in the hallway when she was about to go to bed. "Come to Finland sometime," he hissed in his heavily accented Swedish. "We have only wood."

"Not much different in Norway," she snarled back, before shoving past him.

* * *

The next morning, she looked out to find Emil with his face in his hands.

He was sitting in the middle of the sofa, elbows resting on his knees, golden locks spilling from between his fingers. "Did I only make things _worse?_ "

Though Sigrun opened her mouth, no words would come out to answer him. As it turned out, she didn't have to: presently a skinny twig of a man slipped into her line of sight, his delicate hand setting a steaming mug on the table in front of Emil before he slipped into the neighboring space. Even as he gently patted Emil's back, though, Lalli looked up to turn his silver glare directly on her.

Sigrun spent the rest of that morning sitting on the stairs, her hand spread over her forehead in imitation of Emil's posture. _Was_ she being ungrateful? She'd spent so much time since her injury being angry—at the gods, at the people inflicting their stares and pity, at the doctors who couldn't get things moving fast enough. Emil, though? Ever since she'd gotten here he'd done nothing but try to _help_ her, an offer made not out of pity but a gratitude of his own. Emil had done nothing to earn what she was doing to _his_ life.

"What's the matter, Captain Eide?" Dr. Strömberg (Sigrun had finally bothered to learn the woman's name) asked her later that day, when she started the physical therapy routine without a single protest. "Did you actually run dry of complaints for once?"

"Shut up," she muttered, and firmly gripped the bars.

* * *

As the months wore on, it soon became clear that Sigrun wasn't going to be leaving Sweden any time soon.

Though she could at least walk now without constantly holding onto something, her gait was nowhere near steady or normal. As if that wasn't bad enough, the leg itself had begun to have problems: the socket had begun to chafe and rub painfully against the stump to which it was attached, to the point where she stopped wearing it altogether outside of therapy sessions.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?" Dr. Strömberg demanded, after she'd finally gotten nosy and point-blank ordered Sigrun to tell her why she was putting the prosthetic on _now_ , instead of coming in with it already attached. "When I asked you whether you'd been experiencing any discomfort, this is what I _meant!_ "

"I wasn't taught to run crying to the doctor over every little twinge!"

For a few moments, the doctor only closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the ceiling, taking deep, steady breaths. "Well, what's done is done," she said at last, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We're going to have to do another fit, which is just as well since _you_ ," she pointed with her clipboard, "now need to give that leg some rest."

So it was back on crutches for another week, then. Sigrun let out a groan.

* * *

That effectively closed her window to go back to Dalsnes: they were by now entering the latter half of spring, and travel was rapidly becoming unsafe. The last ship for Norway would be departing from the port tomorrow morning.

Sigrun jotted a brief note to her parents, which Lalli took down to the post for her. Having no one else to notify and nothing else to do, she then resigned herself to spending the summer with Emil and his family.

The twins, of course, were ecstatic to find that Sigrun would be in the house for the foreseeable future. By Sigrun's reckoning, there were far worse things than spending a summer with three kids.

Sonja… talked. She didn't say much, but now that she had finally gotten used to Sigrun's presence, she did at least talk. Sometimes it was to ask questions. More rarely, she shared random pieces of information about herself.

"Why don't you wear this?" she asked, turning Reynir's charm over and over in her hands. She'd seemed curious about it, so Sigrun had let her hold it.

"Don't need it," she grunted; she was doing exercises on the floor, trying not to let her muscles weaken the way they had last time. The _last_ thing she wanted was to get her leg back again only to find she'd lost the strength to use it.

"It would help you."

Sigrun paused, leaned on one elbow, and looked up at Sonja, who was sitting in the room's chair. "Now how do you know that?"

Sonja didn't answer, only ran her finger over the designs with an expression of intense concentration that looked adorable on her young face. Sigrun shrugged, and was just about to return to her exercises when she spoke again.

"This side will make you hurt less." She flipped the disk. "And this side…" Her nose scrunched up. "It'll make you get better fast."

"Emil," she said seriously that night, when the two of them were taking the usual few minutes to relax before bed. "You never told me that kid was a mage."

From what she'd seen of him in the field, Sigrun half-expected a sputtering denial, but Emil had grown since then; instead, he only ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Well, that's what Lalli says. I wouldn't really know." She raised an eyebrow. "Look, Sigrun, magic is one thing, but I still don't answer to any gods!"

"Fair enough." She leaned back in her chair. "You get someone to train her?"

"Lalli says he can't, and I don't want to send her off to some academy in Iceland right when she's gotten settled in here. Lalli's going to try to introduce her to Reynir in that dream plane he says they all wander around in, once he thinks she's ready."

The two of them lapsed into silence once more. In all honesty, Sigrun hadn't been planning to ask anything more, but…

"I don't know why she chose _Lalli_." Emil shook his head. "There are so many other mages out there, powerful ones…" He let out a breath. "But when she called for help, he was the one who heard her."


	9. Chapter 9

"I owe Lalli a romantic night out."

Sigrun raised an eyebrow. "I need to know this why?" He _better_ not be about to ask her for suggestions.

"Well, we were… ah… going to make it a _long_ night. And we kind of need someone to babysit the kids while we're gone…"

"Sure, I'll watch your brats. Just do me a favor and don't give me any more details."

"And you're sure you're up to it? If you'd rather we wait until after you've got your leg back, it won't be a big deal to reschedule—"

"Emil." She glared at him. "Shut up. I said I'd do it, that means I'm fine with doing it."

Emil smiled, and only then was it clear just how worn down he'd been: from worry and stress, the strain of raising three children and constantly wondering whether he was doing the right thing…

In his haste to hug her, Emil almost collapsed on top of her. "Thank you _so much_."

"Yeah, yeah." She patted his back. "Just as long as I don't have to cook."

* * *

"You two behave for Sigrun now, do you hear me?"

"Sure, Pappa!" Lucas crowed, immediately followed by Leon's "Yeah, Pappa!"

Lalli crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes in the twins' direction.

"We will, Itä," they both said in unison, their voices much more subdued.

"We might not be back till tomorrow morning," Emil said to her in an undertone while Lalli was palming the keys. "So there's no need to wait up for us after the children are in bed—but that'll be the latest, I promise."

They both looked rather spiffy: Emil in a dark blue jacket with elaborate embroidery picked out in various colors, while Lalli had opted for a more conservative piece of silver-gray. They hadn't left her defenseless either: a full pot simmered on the stove, ready to eat whenever they were. Sigrun nodded in understanding; they'd earned it.

The first few hours weren't bad. Sigrun roughhoused with the twins while Sonja looked on, letting out the occasional nervous giggle. She told all three kids stories of her days in the army, and her adventures in the Silent World. They ate dinner—Sigrun had gotten good enough at standing on one foot that she was able to stand in front of the stove and ladle soup into bowls without anything ending up spilled or broken. She _didn't_ enforce the bedtime Emil had set, but eventually the kids started yawning and tottered off to their beds of their own volition.

Sigrun wasn't tired.

Nowadays, she spent much of her time telling a story, or playing with the kids, or talking with Emil, or helping out with simple chores, and she could forget. Even the grueling sessions with Dr. Strömberg could help her forget, because there she had something to _focus_ on, the burning strain of her muscles and the knowledge that, however slow it might be, she _was_ making progress.

Then, there were times like this, when she was alone in the dark with nothing to do and no company except her own thoughts.

Emil and Lalli had been very generous, but Sigrun couldn't stay with them forever. Emil's weariness had already proven that. By the time winter came again, she knew she would have to leave, but not where to go or what to do.

She might have more freedom of movement now, but every option she'd rejected before leaving Dalsnes still stood. She didn't know any trades. She could no longer do the physically demanding work that had once been a given. And—she had to face it—she would never have a place in the military again.

 _So it's either find some menial job sitting behind a counter, or live off my parents' charity for the rest of my life._ A long, hard, boring slog through life, followed by an unglamorous death… Hardly seemed worth it, when she thought of it that way.

Despair settled in her stomach at the thought, but Sigrun was far past the point where she could throw random pieces of ceramic at the walls to vent her frustration. Indeed, she could hardly work up the will to pick up her crutches and limp her way to her own bed, and so lay down and drifted off right where she was, on the sofa of a house that wasn't home in the middle of a foreign land.

* * *

The overwhelming sense of something _wrong_ promptly jolted her awake.

By pure honed reflex she attempted to vault off the sofa and start running, only to crash straight into the coffee table before she'd even finished consciously processing the situation. Only when she was lying on the floor nursing her bruises did she fully realize what had woken her:

The floor was hot, the apartment around her filling with choking clouds of smoke.

" _Dritt!_ "

She groped frantically for her crutches, but it was getting increasingly difficult to see, and nothing met her questing fingers but the legs of the overturned table. Having no choice, Sigrun began to crawl.

She _had_ to get the kids out, and she had to do it before they were all roasted or, worse, slowly choked to death. Hel or Valhalla or nothing at all, she was _not_ going to have Emil's last memory of her be that she'd let his children die.

When she reached the twins' room, she managed to balance herself on the stump of her leg and her remaining knee, and from there tried to use the doorknob to hoist herself upright. She still fell into the room with a crash when the door unexpectedly _opened_ , but she wasn't going to complain: the noise had woken Lucas and Leon up quite effectively.

"Out the window and down the fire escape!" she shouted. " _Now!_ "

The twins jumped to obey her, and Sigrun made sure they were at least out the window before she hastened, on hands and knee, to the next room down.

"Sonja!" she tried to call, but was interrupted by a coughing fit. The heat was quickly becoming unbearable, smoke all around her billowing up toward the ceiling.

A small whimper caught her attention.

Squinting against the smoke, Sigrun could see no sign of Sonja in the room… but when she traced the sound back to its source and lifted up the edge of the comforter, she found the girl hiding under her bed, clutching—Sigrun would have laughed if she'd had the breath—the charm that Reynir had made for her. She held out a hand, and Sonja crawled into her arms.

There was no way of knowing whether the window was latched, but she was too low to the ground to reach the mechanism, and at any rate it would not budge no matter how hard she tried. After precious seconds wasted pushing futilely against the glass, Sigrun groped around some more, located a chair leg, told Sonja to stand back, and rammed the thing through the window.

Glass cut into her hands and knee as she climbed over the sill, Sonja clinging to her neck for dear life, but the rush of cool night air into her lungs was a welcome relief, and cleared her head just enough that she was able to _think_ again. The fire escape had been made for people with two working legs, and even the one she had left was now shaking and uncooperative, but Sigrun had never let impossible odds stop her before and she wasn't about to get in the habit now.

She began to scoot down on her butt, one step at a time. Already a crowd had gathered below them, and though she thought she caught a glimpse of Emil's terrified face among the onlookers, she could not spare the focus to double-check.

They were nearly halfway down when the steel gave way beneath her.

The only warning she got was a sudden feeling of weightlessness, and then Sigrun found herself holding on by pure instinct to one of the railings of the top half of the fire escape, while the rest of it fell away to clatter on the ground below. Beneath her, someone screamed.

 _Hope Sonja's as good at holding on as I am_ , she thought desperately; there was nothing she could do to keep the kid from falling without losing her own grip. Either way, they were both done for: even if Sigrun could hold on indefinitely, the building wouldn't, and that was _if_ the searing heat didn't get them first…

"Sigrun!"

Her head whipped around toward the source of the voice, and her eyes widened when she saw who it was. Of all the foolhardy—

Lalli, it seemed, had evaded all of the emergency personnel and rushed up to scale the side of the building, where he was now using one hand to grip the edge of a windowsill that was slightly below her. His other hand was urgently reaching out.

Sonja whimpered and held on tighter when Sigrun tried to shift her over. "He'll catch you," she reassured. "Now let go."

In the end, it was less Sonja's choice than it was the simple inability to hold on any longer. There was a brief, stomach-dropping moment as the child plummeted through the air, but Lalli was ready, and he didn't miss; she was safe in his arms before the crowd could so much as let out a gasp. He shot Sigrun one last look that might have been an apology before scrambling back down. She nodded, once, with finality: she bore him no grudge, and she understood why.

That left only Sigrun, alone, holding on for dear life. Lalli would not come back for her, she knew; he'd risked his life for his daughter, but it wasn't safe for him to come back a second time, and in any case he could not have taken Sigrun's weight. She was on her own.

Wave after wave of heat washed over her. Smoke billowed out from the windows. From somewhere above her, there was the sound of shattering glass.

Sometimes, when you were a Hunter, you had a split second to make a decision between two crap choices, one of them _guaranteed_ to get you killed, the other only incredibly likely. Which was which could be learned only through hard experience, and it was a lesson not everyone survived. Which one you _chose_ depended only on knowing your own mind.

A guaranteed death, or even the slimmest chance to claw one's way to life… Sigrun had time to think none of this, though. Instead, she released her grip of her own will and plummeted downward as hungry flames exploded out of the window above her, because she had already made her choice.

* * *

 **A/N:** Remember: dead authors do not write fanfic. So please don't kill me until the next chapter is out.


	10. Chapter 10

Both of the boys survived without a scratch on them. Sonja also got off lightly, all things considered; she was treated for mild smoke inhalation and released to the custody of her fathers. The hero who'd saved them was not so lucky.

Sigrun _really_ could've lived without the part where she broke her _good_ leg on the way down—not to mention several other bones. Broken bones were far from her only problem, though, as was proved by the extended hospital stay—the first few days of which she spent completely immobilized, with needles in her arms and tubes down her throat because she could barely even _breathe_ on her own. Had she suffered such injuries in her native Dalsnes, she probably would not have lasted the night.

Yeah, at the moment there were a lot of things in Sigrun's life she could have lived without—but in the end, she decided, better to live with them than not live at all.

* * *

There were visitors. The first time Emil saw her after the fact, he burst into tears through which she could barely make out his outpouring of gratitude. Sigrun could do nothing but pat his shoulder reassuringly until he'd calmed down. Lalli, by contrast, seemed determined to avoid her, and Sigrun knew him well enough by this point to know that it was because he felt guilty: for not having been there when a crisis struck, for helping Sonja but not coming back for her.

The only thing that stopped her from smacking him on the back of the head was the fact that it would have hurt her still-burned hand far more than it would have hurt him. Well, that and Emil's assurance that it wouldn't help.

"It was me or both of us," she said instead, her voice coming out hoarse, once she _was_ able to speak again. "What do you think you could have accomplished by sticking around—other than going down with me?"

"We took a night out. I should have been there."

"Can't know everything. Lotta things I'd've done differently if I'd known how things were going to go."

They waited a few days to bring the kids in to see her, until she'd healed enough not to scare them. Still, the twins were unusually shy of her, averting their eyes and running out of the room the second they were allowed. Sonja, by contrast, was bothered not at all, and when Emil lifted her up to Sigrun's level, she was in turn holding up the charm, which by some miracle she'd managed to hold onto all through the long climb down, and which was now strung on a length of colorful cord that Sonja claimed to have braided herself.

"Fine," Sigrun grumbled, lifting it from Sonja's hands and hanging it around her own neck at last. For fanden, she couldn't say no to Sonja anymore… not to mention that pride didn't seem so important once you were in enough pain.

Even Dr. Strömberg dropped by—to inform her that just because she was injured, that didn't let her off the hook for physical therapy. As a matter of fact, she was more on the hook now than ever—recovering from these new injuries would not be a trivial task.

Throughout all of it, Sigrun never told any of them her secret.

The Swedish doctors, she knew, would scoff, and then check her for head injuries. Emil wouldn't scoff, only nod and look concerned and whisper to the doctors later that she might need to be checked for head injuries. And of course, she didn't need to put it on any of the kids.

Lalli, she thought, would understand. Then again, Lalli would also understand enough to know that it was not for him to know.

In all honesty, Sigrun wasn't sure sometimes whether _she_ believed what she'd seen. It had been dark, her head spinning with pain and smoke, and she'd been so out of it by that point that when one of the medics had pressed a mask to her face to help her breathe, she'd protested that she didn't need it because she was immune. It could have been a hallucination. It could have been a dream.

Still, for the briefest moment of clarity as the medics had loaded her into the ambulance, Sigrun had been sure that she'd seen a woman on horseback on the edge of the crowd, unnoticed by any of the people swarming around, emergency lights gleaming off her polished armor, who had been looking directly at _her_.

* * *

"You sure you won't stay any longer?"

"Nah." She shifted her crutches, which she was carrying over her shoulder. "It's been fun, but Dalsnes is home, y'know?"

"Well, then." Emil nodded, and held out a hand. "Good luck."

"And hey," she said as she grasped his hand, "I'll be back in a few years no matter what." Only yesterday, her parents had radioed to inform her that they'd already received a letter from one Dr. Strömberg containing a list of exercises, admonishments that she actually _do_ them, warnings that she had a contact in Dalsnes who _would_ inform her whether her instructions were being followed, and a date by which Sigrun was expected to return for maintenance and re-fitting, and did Sigrun know her?

"Unfortunately," she'd grumbled into the microphone.

Dalsnes would always be her home—but it looked as if she had a permanent base in Mora now too.

"You have something to do there?" Lalli asked. He'd been keeping a sharp eye on the twins, one hand on each of their shoulders, but looked to her as he said it, his face grave.

"I'll find something. Or I'll _make_ something, whichever I have to." He nodded in acknowledgment.

Crisp, refreshing sea air swirled around her as she made her way up the gangplank. Already her limbs were trembling in anticipation of seeing her home once more. She missed her parents. She missed the mountains and the fjords that were in her blood.

It would hurt, she knew, to see her old comrades again, to see Ragna in the place that had once been rightfully hers. Sometimes, though, pain was just another part of the job.

Things were never going to go back to the way they were. Somehow, though, Sigrun thought that she'd still be able to make something worthwhile.

* * *

 **A/N:** Just a short epilogue left, and then we're done!


	11. Epilogue

There was only one bench in the Dalsnes port. Nobody begrudged her taking it.

The weather was good, the air refreshingly cool and crisp, and Sigrun took a moment to lean back and enjoy the sunlight.

Her legs were stretched out in front of her, one of her pant legs rolled up to avoid catching on the metal. The last time she'd been to Mora, Dr. Strömberg had asked her if she'd like to try a more lifelike model, but that would have come at the cost of durability, and Sigrun had refused. She actually _used_ the thing, and she needed something hard-wearing.

When the ship pulled in, it was a little late—choppy seas, the radio had said. As the passengers disembarked, Sigrun watched them carefully. Too old, too young, wrong hair color, wrong gender, speaking the wrong language…

Ah. There she was: the one who'd stopped to lean over the side of the railing and was now losing her lunch to the sea. Sigrun waited until she looked up again, and waved.

By the time Sonja had staggered over and collapsed to the bench beside her, she was looking distinctly green. "I thought Itä was exaggerating when he said boats were evil," she groaned.

Sigrun only chuckled, and patted her on the back. "Just sit still for a minute. It'll pass." Nevertheless, while Sonja was sitting there with her arms wrapped around her stomach, Sigrun pulled the charm out from under her shirt and plonked it around Sonja's neck instead. The thirteen-year-old smiled weakly when she saw what it was.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

For a time, they simply sat there watching the waves as the rest of the crowd dispersed. Presently Sonja sat up straight.

They looked each other over, noting the changes since Sigrun's last visit. Sigrun wasn't much for mirrors, but she knew that she'd been getting a few gray streaks in her hair, a few lines on her face. Sonja, meanwhile, had been letting her hair grow out—a bit too long for Sigrun's liking, but at least she'd had the sense to pull it back. She looked delicate, and far too skinny, but she'd had a growth spurt over the past year, and Sigrun could tell she was going to be _tall—_ Emil would _hate_ it, she thought with a grin.

"So tell me," she said, turning to face Sonja and resting her elbow on the back of the bench, "before we get started. Why are you _here_ , and not with the Cleansers?"

"Well… I _was_ born in Norway." Sonja smiled, running her fingers over the disk. "And… Pappa said he learned more from two months in the field with you than he did from two years with the Cleansers."

"Huh." Sigrun wouldn't show it here, but she was touched.

"He also said you protect your people. With your life, if you have to."

"That doesn't mean you won't _think_ you're dying. Training with me won't be like training with Reynir."

"I know."

"I hope you also know I'm not going to give you _that_ again unless you're literally about to die."

With a smile, Sonja pulled off the charm and handed it back.

"Good." Sigrun hung it back around her own neck, and stood. "Now let's go make a Viking of you."

Sometimes, it wasn't about dying with courage. Sometimes, it was about a life courageously lived.

* * *

 **A/N:** The core idea for this story first came to me while I was reading Ursula K. LeGuin's novel _Lavinia_ —which is itself a fanfic of the _Aeneid_ —while I was walking home one warm spring evening. The date was the 18th of April, 2016.

I once took a solemn oath that I would never, ever write fic for any work of Ursula K. LeGuin. I respect her too much as an artist—which isn't to say I _disrespect_ any of those artists for whose work I do write; quite the contrary!—but I feel as if there's absolutely nothing I can add to her work that she herself hasn't already done. Any attempt of mine to play in her sandbox would turn to dust in my hands. In spite of that, though, her stories have continued to inform and inspire my own, and I can see her influence increasingly more as I mature as a writer.

In this case, it was the description of how some of the Trojan soldiers who'd had their fill of fighting settled down easily enough once they'd found a safe haven, but others—the young, hot-blooded ones—found peacetime difficult, and had a hard time adapting. For some reason, that resonated with me incredibly strongly. I know what it's like to be young and restless and always in search of a new challenge, but I also like to think that I know the value of peace.

Eventually, I put the book away in favor of watching the sunset, and when you're walking long distances, there's not much you can do but think. I started to think about Sigrun, a born fighter who I have an incredibly hard time picturing doing anything else with her life. In thinking I began to wonder, in the event that she had no choice but to leave the battlefield, how this warrior would find her peace.

By the time I got home, I had a fledgling idea already planned out in my head, which I wrote up two nights later and posted in my 100 Prompts collection under the title "Fortitude". Even then, however, it wanted to be more. I felt that there were things still left undone, avenues unexplored, and that I'd left Sigrun off without allowing her a full chance to heal. I wanted to give her that chance. Over the next week more and more ideas kept popping into my head, I caught myself looking up information on prosthetic limbs during my lunch break and testing how physically taxing it was to hop up and down a staircase with the use of only one leg, and even though I told my muse (repeatedly!) that I was trying to finish a thesis and find a job and overall not fail at life, this was a story that wanted to be written. No—it _insisted_ on being written.

I hope there are some out there who found this story helpful. Disability is a topic with which I don't have a whole lot of personal experience, nor do I know any veterans. I tried to get as much right as I could. I have no doubt I still got a lot of things wrong.

This story has, at times, been very hard to write. It's also been a joy. I can only hope that it meant something to others, and that I can be in any small way worthy of its inspiration.


End file.
